Pay with an AmEx (Gift) Card in the iTunes Store

Mar 04, '10 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: Patenrick

A few days ago, I wanted to get iTunes to accept my AmEx Gift Card, but somehow it always said the security code was invalid. Different from VISA and MasterCard, the security code from an AmEx Card is on the front and is four digits long. There was no doubt this code was in fact valid, and I was typing it correctly.

Obviously I wasn't the only one with this problem -- Apple's Support Discussion Board was filled with people complaining about that, and the "hints" there weren't working at all.

As for me, it worked after I put an empty space after the last number on the card. The reason: iTunes wanted to have 4 4-digit parts (16 digits) of the credit card number, but the AmEx had only had 15 digits. This was causing the invalid security code.

However, you couldn't tell that in the first place, because all iTunes showed after rejecting the code was **** **** **** 4123. In fact, 123 were at positions 13 to 15 in the real credit card. But iTunes made them 14 to 16, and took one digit of the first three four-digit parts and made it position 13.

First I was concerned I might have done something I shouldn't have done (if it's even possible, which I doubt). Yesterday, though, I got my receipt from iTunes and checked AmEx -- it worked; iTunes was able to transfer from my credit card.

I don't know how many people actually have this problem, all I know is that the number isn't too small. And I hope that this will work for everybody with the same issue.

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Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20100302125903322